Into the Light
by Jazz4
Summary: When a diplomatic mission goes horribly wrong, Hoshi must look inside herself in order to survive.


TITLE: Into the Light

AUTHOR: Jazz

EMAIL: andrews_j2002@yahoo.com.au

RATING: PG-13 

CODES: S, Tu/S

DISCLAIMER: Characters are the exclusive property of Paramount, and any liberties taken are the author's own.

SUMMARY: When a diplomatic mission goes horribly wrong, Hoshi must look inside herself in order to survive.

A/N: Thanks to my triumvirate of beta readers: downinnewyork, Daria and Chele. You guys are the best!

Into the Light 

By Jazz

It's been almost an hour now since I made the decision to write all of this down, and I'm still not sure how I'm going to go about it. I don't trust my own voice, so I've dug out a rather dusty keypad and have hooked it up to my personal communications console. I've cleared space to sit at my desk, and now I'm looking at the blank screen and wondering how the hell I'm going to describe the last two weeks. Yes, I know it's only an away mission, but if you can imagine how I felt years ago when I had a similar blank screen before me and an honours thesis to write--well, that's kind of how I feel right now. 

So here goes. I guess the best place to start is at the beginning.

And yet so much has happened. It seems as if my feelings have taken a sharp U-turn, and I fear it's going to be difficult to rationalise the Hoshi Sato of almost two weeks ago to the Hoshi Sato sitting recuperating in her quarters today, under Doctor Phlox's orders. But I can only try. We can only try.

Though when I think about it, Jon said this wasn't for him to read, or the doctor, or T'Pol. It's for me. And I guess for Trip as well, since he went through everything I did. But maybe he doesn't want a reminder. God, I'm rambling now...Trip, if you're reading this, get used to my rambling because this is all coming off the top of my head, and I'm not taking any real direction. Got that?

Take two.

It all started on a day when Jon hauled me out of the middle of a diagnostic I was running and into his ready room. I remember him sitting behind his desk, completely absorbed in a PADD he was reading, and that I actually stood there for a full twenty seconds before he noticed me. I remember it was that long because Jon has this old wooden model Clipper Ship, and its main sails puff out very slightly every two seconds from the constant air-recycling, and that I counted ten puffs waiting for him to notice I had come in. When he looked up he seemed distracted, and I asked if anything was wrong.

"Wrong?" he repeated, and then shook his head as if to clear it. "No, everything's fine. Actually, I'm glad you came to see me so quickly."

"Your message sounded urgent."

"Yes." The beginning of a smile pushed at his mouth. "Hoshi, do you remember the Tolvan System we stopped at a few weeks ago?"

I smiled. "How could I forget, Captain? It took me days just to get a grip on their adjectives. Did you know the Tolvans have thirty-eight ways to represent the word 'star'?"

"I didn't," Jon said, "but thanks for the tip." He stood up. "Now, it seems, to the Tolvans, _you've_ become something of a 'star'."

I almost groaned at the awfulness of the pun, but held myself back and gazed at him quizzically instead. 

"Apparently, you made such an impression on Ambassador E'Loc's wife that the Tolvan Confederacy wants to present you with a special commendation. Something called the 'Interstellar Diplomacy Medal'. They want you to return to Tolval and accept it. On behalf of Starfleet, of course."

Of course. It all comes back to Starfleet, in the end, doesn't it? 

No, that's a bit harsh. I didn't mean it like that. Actually, I remember being pretty excited that I was going to receive some sort of commendation, especially from a species we had only just met. Again, if you're reading this, Trip, don't laugh. I know now that these medals are given out by the Tolvan Confederacy a dime a dozen; such is their nature, and who can blame them really? Just indulge my little piece of pride, and remember that it didn't last for long.

Anyway, there you have it. Jon had handed me a simple diplomatic away mission on a plate, and I was standing there gobbling it up like it was a food going out of fashion. But that's how I felt. I know it's hard to imagine now, but I can only speak the truth.

"Will I be going on my own, sir?"

Jon was rapidly forgetting my presence again when I asked this. He put his PADD down, and said offhandedly, "No. I'll send Trip down with you. He was involved with their engineers when we stopped there before, and knows the area pretty well." He returned to his PADD, indicating I had been dismissed.

To tell the truth, I was kind of hurt that Jon hadn't wanted to come himself. He's known me for more years than I can remember, but I guess you can't have everything.

If I had known what was going to happen, I'd have pleaded not to go at all.

--- 

We left the next morning. As Enterprise was in the middle of one of T'Pol's data collecting missions, it was best decided that Trip and I take Shuttlepod Two, and rendezvous with the ship at Tolval in two days time. Sitting in the navigator's seat I basically had nothing much to do except watch the planet gradually fill our viewscreen. Trip, on the other hand, insisted on doing everything himself, though he could easily have switched to autopilot. I think he just likes the chance to escape the bowels of engineering and drive the shuttle for a change.

"So, how long do you think this ceremony will take?" he asked, eyes flickering between the controls and the view outside.

I smiled, amused at the slightly manic behaviour he was unconsciously exhibiting through his multitasking. "Why? Are you eager to get back already?" 

Trip shot me a glance, and made a minute course adjustment. "'Course not. Opportunity to see one of my colleagues receive a commendation--wouldn't miss it for the world." He offered me a smile. "I'm just curious, that's all."

I shifted in my seat, thinking back to my conversation with Jon. "Shouldn't be more than a couple of hours. And don't expect too much; it's pretty low key. No big deal."

"C'mon, Hoshi," he said warmly, "you can be a _bit_ excited. Hell, I know I'd be."

"Thanks."

"No, come to think of it, I'd be nervous."

I groaned and jabbed him in the arm half-heartedly with my elbow. He laughed, but didn't say anything further, so we spent the remainder of the journey in relative silence, save for the odd beep emitted from the consoles. Actually, it was kind of nice just sitting there, not talking. God knows we do enough of it back on the ship, and a little peace and quiet does wonders...and I admit, I _was_ feeling nervous. But that's expected, right?

We reached Tolval in good time, just under the forty eight hours Trip had estimated the journey to take, and proceeded through the busy entrance station with minimum fuss. Before too long we were being welcomed at the Tolvan Confederacy. The shuttle we left in one of the visitor docking bays, which, for some reason, made me laugh.

"Got any change for the meter?" Trip asked innocently, thinking along the same lines I was, as we were herded into the Confederacy building by a nervous looking Tolvan cadet, and into the heart of the beast.

---

Actually, thinking back, it was seeing that young cadet which first made me feel that something was wrong. It was his nervousness; the white streaks across his skin where he had been unconsciously wringing his hands; the stutter in his voice; the slight dilation of his pupils. The Tolvans are a humanoid species. They have a wide range of cultures and ethnic traits among their people, but in general the majority of the populus are progressive and liberal-minded. They place great importance on the arts and consider diplomatic relations with other peaceful species as a forefront to the Tolvan way of life. Hence their eagerness to present me with this commendation, and moreover to further strengthen ties with humans. Certainly admirable, and certainly no grounds for suspicion.

But suspicious I was. I had been inside the Confederacy building once before on our one and only visit, that time on a general fact-finding tour with the captain and T'Pol. As a translator, I'd met with quite a number of the Confederacy members. They had been uniformly kind, curious in turn to learn my own language, and I had left with a feeling of immense goodwill towards those people. But now, seeing the apprehension in the body language of the young Tolvan before us; it made a bubble of foreboding swell inside me, and I couldn't for the life of me explain it.

I tried to hide the feeling by engaging in polite conversation with the cadet.

"Shall I be meeting with Ambassador E'Loc?" I asked.

We had reached the controls of a lift, upon which the cadet jabbed a long finger, opening the doors.

"I do not...yes, I believe that is true." And he refused to say anything more.

If Trip picked up on my thoughts he never said anything, but I think he did sense that I wasn't my usual self, and I remember him meeting my eyes and lifting an eyebrow in silent question. But of course I didn't say anything. If I couldn't explain it to myself, how was I going to explain it to Trip? So I shrugged in reply, and he murmured, "Hang in there," into my ear, as we stood in the lift, as if he thought I was nervous about the ceremony. Oh Trip, if only you knew. If only _I_ knew. We could have turned around that very minute, made an excuse to the cadet, left Tolval for good. We could have been back on Enterprise in a matter of days.

But we didn't. We kept going, because there was no reason not to, except for that strange, telling itch pushing at my insides, telling me we were walking into peril.

---

We stopped outside a set of double doors. The young cadet paused, as if contemplating something, and then pressed a communications panel on the wall.

"Yes?" I recognised the voice of the Ambassador. 

The cadet cleared his throat, but I could still hear a slight tremor in it as he said, "Ensign Sato and Commander Tucker are here, Sir."

There was a beep, and the doors slid open silently.

At first I saw only light; white, shockingly bright light. When my eyes adjusted, I realised that the light was streaming in through a magnificent glass ceiling. It looked like an atrium, but without the potted plants and token fountain. We stepped inside. The floor was curiously cold underfoot, in contrast to the warmth of the sunlight that was flowing copiously upon our upper bodies. There were narrow windows along the far wall. I could just see craggy peaks in the distance, which cast long shadows upon the valley where the city nestled like soft liquid in the dip of a spoon. The city is located close to the northern pole of the planet; though it was only just past midday the sun was already setting.

Trip and I entered, following the cadet, and halted in the middle of the room. Before us stood three men: Ambassador E'Loc, whose voice we heard before coming in, and two Tolvans I didn't recognise. They were tall and burly types, and dressed quite differently to E'Loc, who was wearing the pale robes of a Confederacy member; the other men were clothed almost head to toe in black. Their hands were clasped behind their backs, out of sight.

Instantly I felt that feeling of trepidation return, but kept it hidden.

No one said anything. I glanced at Trip, who in turn glanced back at the Tolvan cadet, who had moved to stand beside the doors. I remember now, though it didn't register then, that there were no other entrances to that room--except for the windows, which were really of no use, being situated above a steep drop. We were, after all, quite high up.

I saw Trip frown suddenly, and following his line of sight I realised why. A fourth man, also dressed in black, had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to stand beside the cadet. It was almost as if he was blocking our exit. Of course, I know now that _was_ what he was doing, but at that moment I assured myself he had to be part of the ceremony.

My ignorance, it seems, won the day. So I thought.

And then everything happened at once.

Ambassador E'Loc took a step forward, haltingly, and started to speak. "Please. Go now--"

He stopped suddenly, eyes darting. To my horror a trickle of blood blossomed at the corner of his mouth; there was a flurry of movement and the dark Tolvan on his right withdrew something--a knife I think, I don't know for sure--and E'Loc stumbled to his knees. Blood crept down the front of his robe like the bloom of split ink on white paper; he fell jarringly hard upon the floor. I barely had time to register that his neck had been slit open before there were hands over my face, my eyes; fingers clutching hotly at my neck, smothering me, holding me, pushing at me; voices growling into my ear, warm breath at my nostrils; and heavy limbs grasping me, too oppressive, too strong, too close, too close, too close...

And it all went black.

--- 

I don't remember what happened after that. I assumed that my aggressor's partner and his associate had tackled Trip together. I didn't see what they did to him, nor did I know if the young cadet was alive or not. Considering what had happened to E'Loc, I doubted it. When I regained consciousness it was night, and the room was flooded with moonlight, trickling through the glass ceiling and creating a herringbone pattern, pale and ghost-like against the dark of the floor.

E'Loc's body was gone. So were our captors.

The cadet was lying on the other side of the room. At first I thought he was dead, but after watching him for a few moments I saw his chest rise and fall. He was wounded, I could tell. I started to move, dreading the expected pain, but to my surprise there was none. The black Tolvans had handled me roughly, and were brutally strong, but they had left me unharmed, save for a mind-numbing headache. However, when I tried to move I discovered that I had been tied up; bound at my ankles and wrists. My face and mouth were uncovered. I peered through the dark again at the small form of the cadet, saw that he was tied similarly, and Trip--

Oh, god. Trip.

I twisted around as far as I could, frantically, trying to see him. I dared not cry out: I did not know the whereabouts of our captors, and didn't want to bring them back. But I couldn't see him, and just then the moonlight dimmed, and I could barely make out anything. Despite trying to stay calm, I felt my heart beat faster. I had to find out if Trip was all right. It suddenly became very important, more than anything in the world, to know that he was here, alive. 

So I decided to risk speaking. But when I tried, nothing came out. I remember the feeling of large hands clasped at my throat, and I had the horrible thought that perhaps they had damaged my vocal cords. This terrified me--my voice was my livelihood, what would I be without it? But then I rationalised that though it _was_ possible that my voice was damaged, it was just as possible that I was simply panicking again, and sitting there thinking about it was nothing more than kindling to my fear. So I took a deep breath, counted down from twenty, and tried again.

"Commander?"

My voice pierced the silence, louder than I intended, and I flinched and held my breath, waiting for the Tolvans to return.

Nothing happened.

I counted to fifty before I decided it was probably safe. Something inside me told me they weren't going to return that night. I opened my mouth to call again, but then I heard a small sound--synthetic material being scraped across the stone floor; something heavy moving in my direction. The moonlight had just about disappeared completely; I could barely see my own body, and I tensed, preparing for the impact, ready to flail my limbs in any old direction, when--

Something, someone, bumped heavily against my side. I quickly shifted by body weight so I was in a better position to attack, when suddenly the moonlight pierced through the clouds and I recognised Trip, similarly bound but this time with a cloth across his mouth, not two inches away. I breathed a sigh of relief and rolled on my back, heart pounding. 

A short laugh escaped my lips. I wasn't thinking clearly. _Of course_ it was Trip--who else could it have been? 

I turned towards him. "Are you hurt?" I began to say, but then realised he wasn't going to be able to answer me. Instead I said, "Move so I can take that off," and he nodded and ducked his head to where my hands were tied at the small of my back. In the flickering darkness my fingers grasped at the tie in the bandage. It had been knotted tightly, entwined into hair that was slick with perspiration, but after a minute or so I felt it loosening; Trip shook his head, spat out the gag, and coughed.

"Thanks," he croaked, and coughed again. I let him get his breath back before I asked again if he was hurt anywhere.

He shook his head, and moved to copy my position, so we were both leaning up against the wall. "Don't think so. I can move all my limbs." Leaning his head against the wall, he winced. "Just one son-of-a-bitch headache."

"Same here."

Trip was breathing fast: short, sharp breaths, and I realised that he was probably as shocked as I was. After a moment, when he seemed calmer, he peered across at the cadet. "Is he dead?"

"No, I saw him breathing. But I think he's hurt."

I heard him swear under his breath. "We'll have to take a look. But we need to get outta these shackles first." He paused, looked across at me. "What do you think happened?"

I sighed. "I don't know," I said, and began to pull my arms back under my legs, so that my hands were in front of me. This was easier said than done, but after a few unsuccessful attempts I finally managed to get out. Immediately I turned to Trip and started working at the rope around his wrists. Again, the knots were tough, and by the time I had them undone my fingers were stinging.

He turned around to face me, and said, in a low voice, "I can't believe I didn't see it coming. I mean, did _you_ feel suspicious about the whole set-up?" He looked at me, lifted my wrists to better reach the knot. "I sure fell for it. Like a damned fool."

I thought about my premonitions upon first arriving. "Actually, I got the feeling, when that cadet was leading us up, that he wasn't telling us something. But I thought it was just me being silly. You know the reputation I have."

"Hey." Trip held my hands still and made me look at him. "You're not silly about anything, Hoshi Sato. Don't ever think that." He looked so serious that I couldn't help smiling, whereupon Trip returned the smile and gave the ropes at my wrists one last pull. "There, all done," he said.

We proceeded to yank the ropes off our ankles. We then moved together to where the Tolvan cadet was lying. At once I saw that he had sustained an angry looking gash along his torso. Blood had seeped through his pale uniform turning it almost black; even in the dark I could see this. As we knelt beside him he seemed to wake suddenly from his unconscious state. His eyes fluttered, and I propped his head on my knees while Trip lifted up the soaked shirt. After a moment the young man was roused enough to focus his eyes upon mine.

"What's your name?" I asked gently, as Trip removed the shirt completely and began to make a compress out of it.

The Tolvan let out a ragged breath. "E'Tal," he replied. "Cadet Jona E'Tal, of the Tolvan Confederacy." He began to laugh, half-crying at the same time. "At your service."

I shushed him; he was delirious. He soon fell quiet, breathing slowly, and I watched Trip cover the wound. "How's it looking?" I asked quietly.

Trip sat back on his haunches and ran a hand through his hair. He looked up at me. "He needs proper medical attention. I'd say his body's been running on adrenaline since the attack. But the risk now is that he'll go into shock." He paused for a moment, then suddenly turned and hit the floor in frustration. "Damn it! What the hell were those idiots playing at? For a supposedly peace-loving species, they sure have a strange way of acting."

I saw E'Tal open his mouth to speak. "Slowly, slowly," I murmured. "Don't try to speak if you can't."

The Tolvan swallowed. He cleared his throat, touched his forehead as if gathering his thoughts. "They said they were advocates of the Fallen Ones; an extremist cult who stand against the Confederacy's policy of interspecies relations. They oppose all contact with outsiders, believing that Tolval has been polluted. They took Ambassador E'Loc hostage, knowing that he was to meet you. They threatened to kill him if I said anything...I couldn't...if only I hadn't brought you." He closed his eyes. I was about to speak when he continued. "I hope you will forgive me."

Trip glanced at me, smiled wryly, and said, "Hey. There's nothing you could've done, E'Tal. Don't beat yourself up about it." 

E'Tal smiled, although I think it was more of a grimace, but said no more, so we left it at that. I lowered his head off my knees and joined Trip, who had finished his job as nurse for the moment and was leaning, eyes closed, against the wall. I moved close so we were out of E'Tal's hearing, and dipped my head so his eyes met mine. Trip propped a leg up and rested an arm on his knee. He looked tired out. I suppose I couldn't blame him. After a moment, he looked up. "Okay, let's take stock of our situation. We've got, what? Three of these--what'd you call them, Fallen Ones?--that we know of. Then there's three of us, 'cept I wouldn't go countin' on our young friend here to fight off anything except infection, so that leaves us with two against three." He massaged the bridge of his nose, and sighed. "And then there's god knows how many out there."

"But we don't know what's going _on_ out there," I said. "For all we know the Tolvans could be fighting to get us out as we speak."

Trip raised an eyebrow. "Maybe. How long do you reckon we've been stuck here? I'm assuming it's been more than twenty hours, probably almost a day. The captain won't be expecting us back 'till some time tomorrow, but we should've been in communication way before then. I think by now he'd be seriously worried that two of his pigeons hadn't come home to roost." I think Trip was beginning to sound seriously worried himself; and if it was going to be one of us I'd have hoped it'd have been me. But that was Trip's way of coping--by expending nervous energy into words, his sentences at times tended to incorporate the lyrical, moral and nonsensical, often at the same time.

"Do you think they'll return in the morning?" I asked.

"I'd bet my life on it. We can't get out of here--they wouldn't have left us alone if there was any possibility of that happening. My suggestion is..." Trip got up and moved towards the window, and I strained to hear his words, "...that we stay put. See what they want."

I watched him through the dim light as he returned to my side.

"In other words," I added, "don't be a hero."

He nodded reluctantly.

So we sat there in the dark, deep in our own thoughts, until my eyes began to droop and I realised how tired I was. Trip seemed to notice immediately; not by sight, because by then it was getting too dark too see anything at all, but I think because of the fact that I was beginning to lean more heavily against his shoulder. So he said, softly, "Want to get some sleep? I'll watch."

Sight was getting fuzzy by now. I had to pause to form my words.

"Promise?" 

He responded by removing his padded jacket and giving it to me as a pillow. A gallant gesture, as it left him with only his undershirt for warmth, but by then I was too far gone to care.

--- 

I woke early the next morning. To be honest, I didn't have a choice. The glass ceiling allowed the dawn to envelop the room in an almost dazzling spread of sunlight, and it would have taken a tremendously sound sleeper to resist that brightness. My uncle Yung is the only one I can think of; he who remains famous in my family for having slept through an earthquake on not one but two separate occasions. Heaven forgive slow risers.

Anyway, when I opened my eyes, and adjusted to the opaque light, I discovered that my head had left Trip's jacket during the night and had transferred itself to the crook of his arm. I raised my eyes to find Trip gazing at me with an expression of bemusement and something else I couldn't identify. I sat up with a jerk, rubbing at my face with a muffled, "Sorry."

"Good morning to you, too," he replied, and bent the imposed on limb discreetly.

"Oh, god, was your arm asleep?" I felt humiliated, and turned away. "You should have said something," I admonished gently. _Like wake up, you dozy cow._ To escape the uncomfortable heat on my rapidly warming face I set about checking on E'Tal, who had woken some time ago, and was lying quietly where we had tried to make him comfortable last night.

Last night. Yesterday.

There were to be more yesterdays to come. If I had known that then, I'm not sure I would have worried so about my blushing over waking up next to Trip Tucker.

"How are you feeling, E'Tal?" I placed a hand on his forehead. It was cool, drenched with sweat. His eyelids fluttered. "E'Tal?" I repeated, a sudden panic causing my heart to thump. But he then he opened his eyes and smiled. At least, it was an attempt to smile, but my relief was substantial. I had really thought he had chosen that moment to leave us, and I suddenly felt that Trip and I alone, here, in this situation, had no chance in hell of saving a dying man.

"I am...well. Thank you," the Tolvan murmured.

I checked his wound. The dressing needed changing, but he appeared otherwise stable. Looking into his eyes, I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile, and placed a hand upon his forearm. "Hang in there. We're on your side, remember that," I added, perhaps unnecessarily, as E'Tal had closed his eyes again. I don't know, I probably just said it for my own benefit.

When I returned to Trip I found he had moved over to the window, and was lying on his stomach like a sniper, gazing into the last rays of dawn. I copied his position so we were arm to arm, wincing as the cold of the floor penetrated bare skin below my untucked shirt. I studied his profile for a moment, and then said, "What are you thinking?"

"How is he?" Trip's gaze did not move.

I was slightly thrown, then realised he was referring to E'Tal. "He's doing better then I expected. To be honest I didn't think he'd make it through the night." I waited for his response, but nothing came. "Commander?"

"We're so high up..." He murmured to himself. 

_That's beside the point_, I thought. _We weren't exactly expecting to be held hostage here_. I repeated this out aloud to him, expecting to see a wry smile in return; instead he frowned and returned his eyes to the horizon. With a sigh I left him to his thoughts and focused my own eyes on the city below. A hazy mist feathered the rooftops, and off in the distance, I could just see where we had left the shuttle. Transports weaved in and out of the streets, warming up for the morning peak-hour traffic. Finally I broke my resolution to remain quiet, and had started to say, "Okay, are you going to tell me what you're looking at--" when Trip shushed me and pointed out the window.

"What?" I hadn't meant to sound irritated; Trip didn't notice, and lifted a hand.

"There," he said softly, stabbing a finger at the glass. "Look!"

"At what? There's nothing happening out there--"

"The tallest building. Above the mist. The roof...can't you see it?"

"No--" Suddenly I paused; a flash of movement caught my eye, just for a moment, and then was gone. It had looked like a figure, crouched down low, staring out across at us. "Is that it?" I asked incredulously. "Just one person? It could have been anybody."

"Yeah, anybody who has their eyes trained on _our_ floor at the crack of dawn."

"You can't know that for sure. It's too far away to see."

Trip finally broke his gaze away from the view outside and turned towards me. We were close; our voices barely above a whisper. When he spoke I could feel his breath warm my lips. "They're watching us, Hoshi. I'll bet you anything. Hell, they've probably got cameras in this very room. Maybe they can't hear us, but they're watchin' every move we make." He looked at me until the lights in his blue eyes seemed to become separate entities, swimming in the air at some immeasurable point between our faces, and I suddenly became acutely aware of our proximity to each other, of the heat which sat like the blanket of fog outside in the places where our arms touched, and a swift rush of blood forced me to break his gaze and shift my body an inch or two across the floor. 

"Yes," I said, trying to sound casual, "you could be right."

I heard him sigh. "Doesn't really matter, anyway. We're stuck here, with a dyin' man. They know that." Out of the corner of my eye I saw him turn away from the window, saying softly, "How could they not?" 

And he got up, wandered towards the heavy doors. I watched his back, glad to be on my own. Thoughts not exactly tied to our predicament twisted in a confused knot inside my head, and I had to force myself to breathe deeply to clear them. What had brought this sudden change of heart? I had never imagined myself attracted to Trip. I still felt that I wasn't, except...in those few moments, it was as if something in my brain had just clicked over and there went my heart out the door. It wasn't me, I swear. It was ridiculous. He was my commanding officer, my friend. Friends are not happy bedfellows with lovers. 

"Hoshi..."

"Yes?" I said it a little loudly, perhaps, but it cleared my head, brought some perspective, which for a while there I think I'd been in danger of losing. I turned towards Trip, expecting to see him at the window again, or maybe with E'Tal.

Instead, I was surprised to see him standing before three Tolvans. Tall and swarthy, their gazes were a good two inches above Trip's head. They looked into my eyes with an expression of pure, detached coldness, as if an icy wind was caressing my cheeks. 

"Hoshi Sato. Come before me," the middle one said.

Our captors had returned.

--- 

His name was Nieta Ve'Lor. He was, we were assured, quite single-minded in his pursuit of his goal: the glorious restoration of Tolval. Those were his words; I want to stress that. I have already mentioned how tall he was, but his eyes were narrow and unfeeling and seemed to belong to a much smaller person. He stared at me a lot.

I never found out his cohorts' names.

Trip, for his part, kept his wits about him and never took his eyes off our visitors. He didn't speak throughout the introductions; it was only when I snuck a glance at him that I realised why--he had clasped his jaw so firmly that the muscles there ticked intermittently, on and off, like a springed coil. He was angry. The fact that he hid it so patiently and so quietly helped us stay calm, and moreover it placed the Tolvans at a premature state of ease. I don't think I ever told Trip that. I guess I was expecting him to jump the gun, as was his wont when faced with direct confrontation, and shower the aliens with a honeyed stream of colourful abuse. But he didn't. He was perfect. 

To be honest, I have to admit this arrival came as something of a blessed intrusion, if only for the fact that it forced me to jump rapidly out of the puddle of unrequited love I had suddenly turned into. I know that sounds silly, and not very Hoshi Sato, but I plan to tell the truth here. So take it as a symptom of stress, if that pleases you, and know that at the moment I have little else but to sit here in my quarters and write these recollections out, and that writing gives me a lot of spare time for thinking. Maybe one day Trip will let me read his version, so I expect all romantic angst there to be thrown out the window, replaced with a joke every second paragraph. Ha ha.

Okay, I'm trailing off into never-never land here. Get back to the story, Hoshi.

So, there we were, up against three extremist revolutionaries--two of whom never said a word, and another who seemed to possess an ego to cloak all three and still have enough left over to be forever labelled an arrogant bastard--and we stood there making idle chit-chat. It was as if we were nothing more than small-time sales reps and this was our latest point of sale meeting. Talk about surreal. Perhaps we were sizing each other up. I don't know. It makes me shudder even now to think of how I actually smiled politely--_politely_, I tell you!--to a man whom I had seen kill Ambassador E'Loc in cold blood.

Ve'Lor made a lazy circle around the two of us so that his back was facing the window, and I saw Trip's eyes flicker to the place where we had seen our unidentified watcher. If the Tolvan noticed this he made no comment; he locked an unblinking gaze on us, and said, "I think it is only sensible of me to outline the future for the two of you." He half-smiled. "You see, I am not an unreasonable man."

I felt Trip bristle, but before I could shoot him a look, he seemed to check himself. "Of course," he replied, his drawl thick as dripping molasses.

"Here are the rules. You are not to leave this room. There will be guards outside this door at all times, and we have additional surveillance on your movements. You cannot communicate with anyone outside, and I do not recommend using the window as a means of escape," Ve'Lor said, turning himself to gaze out into the bright expanse. "We are higher up than any other man or woman in this beautiful city, and I would not want to see you get hurt."

"Is that a threat?" Trip asked softly.

Ve'Lor held a hand up to silence him, and continued speaking.

"We have been in communication with your captain, so you may rest assured, at least, that your people know where you are. And that you are unharmed." He paused, and then looked me in the eye with an air I could not read, so deeply did it lie between that which only the truly insane can express and the angelic cannot hide. I felt the tiny hairs on the back of my neck quiver, and with an unconscious movement my hand reached out, seeking Trip's, but I drew back sharply, raised my chin and stared down those black eyes until I felt my fear subside. I refused to let this man devour me before I had even spoken a word. "You will be fed, kept warm," Ve'Lor went on, "and we will see that your young friend here receives medical treatment."

"He needs to be at a hospital--" I started to say, but the Tolvan interrupted me.

"He stays here. You will not begrudge him the privilege of such..." Here he paused, surveying the length of my body. "Such _lovely_ company, especially considering you will have enough medical supplies to keep a small army of wounded alive." He took a step towards me, and leaned down so near that I could feel his breath moisten my lips. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him hold a hand up to warn Trip from stepping between us. In a voice intended for my ears alone, he said, "You have shown yourself to be a fine nurse so far, Hoshi Sato. I am certain you can continue to do so. Indeed, I think you would have regardless of my donating bandages. That is your nature. You are compassionate--so am I." He smiled; I caught a glimpse of pink tongue, of uneven, roughened molars. "You see, we are not so different, are we?"

_You bastard_, I thought. _You sexist, arrogant, bastard._ I wanted to spit in his face. I wanted to humiliate him, to hurt him. I was that angry.

Instead, I smiled sweetly, secretively; as if we had shared something very personal.

"You have the weapons," I said. "I shall do as you say."

He returned the smile. My stomach tightened.

Trip, I noticed, had a strange look on his face. It probably shocked him slightly to see me act so...shrewdly. I suppose I shocked myself. But I really do, in all honesty, think it was at that moment that my whole attitude changed. Gone was Ensign Sato who jumped at dark corners and whose heart danced erratically at situations of life threatening magnitude. I no longer felt insignificant and powerless in the face of the enemy, because looking into those callous eyes, I knew, without a doubt, that I had seen the chink in Ve'Lor's hard skin, and if I never achieved anything more of worth in my life, I would open it up and let the air rot it to pieces. Diplomacy be damned.

But giving my new resolutions weight would take time, so I remained quiet.

"I am going to leave you now." Ve'Lor turned away from me and addressed a point in space some three inches above Trip's left shoulder. "Be wary of what I've outlined. I should not want to revisit it, and nor should you..." He knelt down beside E'Tal, stared into fellow Tolvan eyes as a hawk might to its prey, and added, as if an afterthought, "You see, my patience is not indefinite."

He stood up and looked at us. 

Then Trip did something that made me smile. He held up his hand.

Ve'Lor looked surprised. "Yes?" 

"Can I ask a question?" Trip's voice was light, but there was no trademark sarcasm. He spoke slowly, as if talking to a very young child.

"Of course."

"Why?"

Ve'Lor frowned, but Trip just stared at him. 

"I have already explained our reasons. We must revenge--"

"No," Trip interrupted. He looked so calm it amazed me. I would have expected him to drown out the alien with volume, but he simply shook his head incredulously. "I don't want to hear this propaganda crap about how you're here to save these people from themselves, or your sordid history in the face of what seems to be a typically mainstream story of a society simply trying to advance themselves as any society should. There may be all sorts of truths and lies to what you've been tellin' us so far, but frankly I don't care. I don't give a damn about what you're trying to achieve or who you're trying to avenge. You can go on about the reasons for your little uprising to your heart's content for all I care. It's all hot air as far as I'm concerned." 

He took a step forward; I saw a flicker of confusion in Ve'Lor's eyes, as well as something else...anger. But it was anger swimming against a current of uncertainty. Trip noticed this as well, and his tone dropped until it was dangerously soft. "But when I saw what you did to the ambassador, when your friends here took E'Loc and Hoshi and myself and set about using us as _playthings_ in your little game of retribution, or revenge, or whatever the hell you want to call it, and then have the balls to turn around and label yourself goddamned _reasonable_..."

He stopped, or maybe he cut himself off before he said anything too provoking, and I saw him bite down on his lip in frustration. _Trip_, I thought, _I know how you feel_. I turned towards him, and at the same time Ve'Lor, in a single fluid movement, made a motion to his comrades and walked out of the room. I left Trip and rushed after the closing doors, crying, "Wait, if you'll just let us talk to our ship--" before there was a loud _thunk_ and they were bolted from the outside.

---****

I stood there, just staring at the dark panelling of the doors, for I don't know how long before I slowly turned and met Trip's eyes.

"What the hell was that all about?"

He glared at me. "I don't know what right you've got to look so smug. _You_ were doing a pretty good job batting your eyelashes back there."

I gaped. "Trip...I--I can't believe you just said that." I walked towards him, all the while trying to gain my composure. He just stood there, staring at me with his arms crossed, looking like a spoilt little boy who'd embarrassed himself by losing his temper in front of all the girls. 

"Look," I said, more calmly this time, "I feel just as frustrated as you do. And I'm glad you said what you did, really..." He kept looking at me, then with a rueful shrug pulled his gaze to the floor. Tentatively, I reached out and touched the back of his hand with my fingers. His skin was warm, soft. "I just think you were playing into his hands, saying those things." I smiled, catching his eyes again. "And I wasn't batting my eyelashes. I was..."

A mirror smile pulled one corner of his mouth playfully. "What?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Hoshi. I wanna know."

"It's called false suggestiveness. Go look it up, Commander."

My fingers were still curled around his. Trip looked down at them and then raised an eyebrow in my direction. His eyes glinted. "Is this a demonstration?" And then softer. "Ensign?"

There was a cough from across the room. E'Tal. Trip and I looked at each other, and our little flirtation vanished in an instant. 

"I'll go," Trip said. Then he added, "I'm sorry we almost fought."

I said nothing, but as a way of reply I nodded, and watched him leave to see to the patient. I had neglected to mention that through all that excitement before with Ve'Lor leaving, he had indeed left a large supply of first aid paraphernalia behind, sitting in a pile beside the door. Trip now bent over it, searching for much needed gauze to redress E'Tal's wound. The rest he left in the pile. _I'll see to organising it later_, I thought.

Watching Trip work, I chewed at my lip and tried to sort out my thoughts. One thing was clear, however: I had been an emotional yo-yo for too long now, and something had to give before I could fully commit myself to any salvage plan of escape. What I had said to myself earlier--about no longer feeling insignificant and powerless--well...that still stood, I swear. But when Trip stood up on that soapbox I had truly feared for him, for E'Tal. For us. Despite wanting to believe that I could be stronger than all the freedom fighters in the world, the fact remained that they _did_ have the weapons, and we didn't. We had come prepared for diplomacy, and as such were ill equipped for a hostage situation. 

I looked down at my hand, at the fingers that were still warm from touching Trip's. Sweat glistened slightly off them in the bright morning light, and a faint shiver rippled down my back. I gave a small sigh.

It was going to be a long day.

---

"What are you thinking?"

Glancing up from my bowl I found Trip's eyes on me. Among the medical supplies that had been left there were a number of days' worth of food and water, so we decided to partake of lunch. The fact that we were surprisingly famished helped sweeten the blandness of the rations. We didn't know when the Tolvans would contact us again, so we would have to make the food last. But for now we just ate.

I swallowed the mouthful of nutrients and carbohydrates reconstituted in a poor excuse for stew, which I had been chewing unsuccessfully on for the past minute or so, and gave him half a smile. "About how long we're going to be stuck here," I said.

"Yeah, that's been top of my agenda, too."

My mouth was having trouble coping with swallowing and talking at the same time, so I put my bowl aside, next to the congealing remains that had been E'Tal's portion. The young Tolvan was now asleep, aided somewhat with the painkillers I had given him. I didn't know how long he would last. I'm not sure I wanted to think about it.

"I kind of got the impression from our little visit that while these supposed negotiations are still going on, we won't be going anywhere anytime soon."   

Trip stuck a fork into his bowl and placed it carefully on the floor beside the others. He rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. "What gets me," he replied, "is where this guy gets off preaching at us as if we were his minions or something. I swear, Hoshi, at one point he looked at me like I was something unmentionable he'd accidentally stepped in." He rolled his eyes at my attempt to not laugh. "You know what I mean."

I patted his shoulder reassuringly. 

He was quiet for a moment. I won't say this in itself wasn't unnerving, for like most of my fellow crewman I was used to the half-full-glass Trip Tucker; not the man who was visibly shaken after having forced himself to exercise some serious self-restraint, and certainly not the man I saw before me now, staring blankly into the middle distance. "Trip," I said.

He wouldn't look at me. I tried again.

"_Trip_. Listen to me. I know how frustrated you are. We brought no phase pistols, no communication devices--"

"You're goddamn right I didn't."

"No. Not you. We. _We_ didn't." He looked up sharply, stared at me. "We weren't coming for a fight. We weren't coming for a war. God, we weren't even coming for a field study. We were coming for a ceremony. A _ceremony_, Trip. That's all. Ambassador E'Loc knew that--so did Captain Archer." 

He blinked, as if trying to clear his head, and finally gave a sigh. "I know, I know," he said. "You're right, of course. I guess I'm just frustrated. And tired." A small, involuntary smile appeared, and he gave a short laugh. "Being a hostage sure puts a damper on your fitness regime."

I chewed thoughtfully. "What do you think the captain's doing right now?"

Trip cleared his throat. "Well, for a start, if what Ve'Lor hinted at is correct, Jon will be neck deep in negotiations for our safety pretty much as we speak." He was silent for a moment, then said, "Do you remember the training we were put through at the Academy for this very sort of situation? What'd they call it?--'Procedural Hostage Knowledge 101'. Or, as I prefer to remember it--'Kissing Your Captive Asses Goodbye'."

We shared a wry glance. Sensing a depressive lull in the conversation, I offered him the canteen I had been sipping from, and picked up my half-eaten meal. "Well, for what it's worth, I aced that particular course. Topped my class."

"I was second in mine," he grunted, taking a long swig of water. "Girl called Helen O'Reddy pipped me in the final exam." He smiled nostalgically. "She quit half way through the following term. Runs a restaurant in Tokyo now, I think."

I forced myself to swallow the gluey food, and tried not to laugh. Trip, amused, handed the canteen back.

"Don't remind me of food, okay?" I said, coughing. 

"I'm sorry, Hoshi."

He smiled and rubbed the back of my neck lightly. I reminded myself this was friendship, a sympathetic hand, nothing more. At least I tried to. After a time, he stopped and plunged back into his own meal.

We ate the rest in silence.

---

That night I dreamt of E'Loc's death, of the brilliant shaft of light that was Ve'Lor's knife, of the weak pulse beating ineffectively at his victim's neck as the old man lay dying, choking in his own blood. Bubbles of air foamed in red pools at his mouth, stifling those irrevocable cries for help. I dreamt of the men who grabbed me, but instead of blacking out like real life had dictated, I struggled free--only to find Ve'Lor's own face mere inches from mine, the hypnotic blade piercingly cold against my own neck. And then he was laughing and pushing closer, and I was screaming, calling out Trip's name, but only seeing those strange, dark eyes drilling into mine. I knew instinctively that I was about to die, but then the image vanished and I was awake and shaking and bathed in sweat and Trip was holding me and rocking me gently, so gently. I was crying and trying to stop crying, but I couldn't. I must have gone back to sleep after that, but if I dreamt again I don't remember doing so. Though I do remember watching the stars and thinking, _if only I could forget_. 

_Please, god, let me forget._

---

And so it began.

I guess my nightmare made a bigger impact on me than I expected; for the rest of that week, in between feeding ourselves, keeping E'Tal alive and receiving intermittent visits from one of Ve'Lor's followers, I experienced it three more times, each time exactly the same. It was becoming something of a worry, and although Trip tried his best to reassure me that he'd wake me the second I began to become agitated, it seemed I was constantly fighting a battle to stay awake at night. And though I never admitted it, the hope that we would be freed was thinning with each passing day.

Trip, bless him, was a godsend. I'll never again roll my eyes at his boyish behaviour, for the whole time we were stuck in that small apartment, give or take the odd moment, he remained unequivocally confident that we would either escape or be rescued. It never occurred to him, I don't think, that neither of those two courses of action would unfold.

But for me it was different.

To whoever's reading this, yes, I know what you're thinking: isn't this the same Hoshi Sato that only a few pages back declared herself a changed woman, one who would never again be dictated to, and who was completely and utterly in control of her own destiny, et cetera, et cetera? But you have to understand that to undergo that transformation, as it were, I had to first pull myself up to some sort of level standing. I had to see past the prejudices my subconscious spat out when I thought of what Ve'Lor had done; what my dreams were dictating to me each time I closed my eyes. I had to break free.

Easier said than done, so I did what I could to satisfy that resolve: I played nurse.

E'Tal sometimes spoke to me when I was tending to him, but only ever in the latter part of the afternoon, when the sun was well into its trail towards night. The remainder of the day he simply stared out through the great expanse of glass, over the city, up into the far reaches of the mountains. I often wondered what he was looking at, but I never asked him. Anyhow he never offered it to me, so it remained, and will always be, a mystery. He talked about his sister, his parents, and his older brother whom I think he idolised, but it was always in the past tense, and try as I might, I could never get him to divulge any further information on Ve'Lor's cause.

I think he knew he was dying. I don't think he feared it.

"We cannot prevent things; they happen regardless," he said to me once. And I believed him.

Trip undoubtedly disagreed with this, though he never said so. He instead spent the majority of his time alternatively subjecting our only door and the walls surrounding it to microscopic analysis, searching out the tiniest hint of an escape route, and staring intently out the window in a kind of mirror to E'Tal's forlorn gaze. But this was no idle musing. Ever since he saw that lone figure crouching atop the highest tower in our view, just before his unconscious pull at my heart strings coincided with our first official visit from Ve'Lor, Trip had focused grimly on that spot with a resolve I found mildly unsettling. Finally on our ninth day, or maybe our tenth--yes, I'm sure it was our tenth--when I asked him what he thought was so important about that particular person, who, incidentally, had since vanished, he gazed up at me with a vaguely wounded expression and said,

"Isn't it obvious?"

I snapped away a surge of irritation. "Trip! Not to me, it isn't."

He sighed. I was getting used to this; being trapped in a small room with a friend--even worse, a friend whose mere presence was playing extreme sports with my hormones more and more as each day passed--wasn't all it had cracked up to be. But my thinking that we'd managed to clamber past that stage was obviously still a tad out of whack, so I ignored the urge to snap at him and instead knelt down so we were a breath's distance apart, and said, more calmly, "I'm sorry. Tell me what's so obvious, and I'll try and see it too."

"I think someone's watching us, and I think they don't realise it."

"By 'they', you mean Ve'Lor?"

"Uh-huh." Trip's eyes gleamed; a tremor of excitement rushed through me, and I dipped my head in closer, as if to ward off any unseen listeners. "This morning I saw it, briefly, and I was gonna to tell you but one of his cronies dropped in with breakfast and I couldn't."

"Saw what?"

"A flash. A signal--you know, like in those old westerns where one fellah shines his shavin' mirror towards the sun and his pal, who's about a ten miles away, sees it and signals back with 'Yeah, I see you, I'm coming'."

I almost laughed. "Trip..."

"I'm serious, Hoshi." He did indeed look serious, so I bit my tongue.

"But, again, how can you know?" I said. "I mean, it's near impossible to tell a flash of a mirror from any old reflection the sun might make from that sort of distance, isn't it?"

"You tell me." Trip shot an eyebrow upwards in semi-triumph, and raised a pointed finger. "There it is..."

I squinted into the hazy brightness. It was almost impossible to see anything clearly out there, so sharply did the light radiate from each wall, panel and pane. Indeed, it was almost as if all the surface material was quietly absorbing the sun's rays. Of course, everything looked cleaner and brighter, but it made it damned hard to focus on a point some mere metres across, at a place a good half a kilometre away, when everything in the foreground was jumping out at you in glorious contrast to the fuzzy area you were trying to pick out. I was opening my mouth to say as much, when I saw it. It only lasted for a second, and for a moment I had to convince myself that my eyes _weren't_ playing tricks, that the flash all that distance away, on an inconspicuous rooftop, was man-made, and not a trick of the light.

"My god..."

Trip grinned. I allowed him his moment of triumph before dampening the mood. "But, Trip," I said slowly, "what makes you so sure that sign was intended for us?"

"Because I recognise it." The grin spread infectiously until it seemed to light up his whole face. "Wouldn't I be a fool not to recognise my own captain?"

---

At first I didn't believe him. How could I have? It was a shot in the dark at best – at least that's what I thought. Trip naturally took hold of the idea that our own crewmembers were physically watching us like a stubborn puppy with a trouser cuff, and didn't let up the whole remainder of that afternoon. I could see why --he was sick to death with our seemingly stagnant existence, and any potential distraction, however dubious, was welcome relief. 

He was correct, of course. Absolutely correct. I know that now.

Because things were rapidly drawing to a close, one from which we could never go back.

---

Nights came early, there in that glass-topped, white-walled Hell we called home. Around four the light would dim and shadows would creep across the city in long, dappled fingers. But our reward was a sunset of heavenly proportions, like the sunsets only the coldest places that lie in the arms of the poles can produce. We might have been trapped, but in those brief minutes of golden light I always imagined we were free again.

That evening, we prepared as usual to see out what would be our tenth day there, and welcome, with typical un-enthusiasm, what we expected would be yet another day, another one we could chalk up. What we didn't know, but would find out, was that our eleventh day of waiting, our eleventh day of rations, of tending to E'Tal's injuries, of standing face against the wall while a guard checked the room for signs of escape and dropped off fresh food and bandages, of boredom, nervous glances and seemingly futile dreams of flight, would be the day we said goodbye.

Oh, yes. We would find out.

But first we had a potentially long night to endure. I say long because E'Tal, though apparently past the most threatening stage of his recovery, had of late dipped into a well of depression, and to my anguish was slowly drawing up the shutters on almost every form of communication. I would talk; he would nod and occasionally smile, but his eyes no longer met mine. Even the beautiful mountains he seemed to have been channelling with glances of fierce longing he no longer spared time for. His eyes were empty shells, and it didn't look like the fight would be returning any time soon. What I hate admitting was that I found it moved me too much, and in the end it was all I could do to replace his dressings and give him food and water, before I found my skin tightening from those burnt orbs, and an overwhelming feeling of helplessness forced me to retire as far away from him as was physically possible.

Trip saw all this, noticed how brief my visits as nurse became. So that evening, when we had finished our meal and I had stood up to begin my nightly ritual of making sure E'Tal was comfortable before Trip and I went to sleep, he placed a hand on my arm, pulling me back down.

"It's okay, Hoshi. I'll do it." And he left me there, sitting alone on our bedding, against the cold wall, and walked over to where E'Tal was lying. I saw him kneel down, gently lift up the bandage, unwrap a fresh pad of sterile gauze. I heard him chatter away--mindless, harmless talk that I knew would receive no response. I felt numb. E'Tal would probably die tonight, I thought, and I knew I wouldn't be able to make myself say goodbye. I realised with a terrible stab of guilt that it was relief I felt, knowing that I wasn't the one having to endure those expressionless eyes, and sitting there, with the stone wall seeping its icy roughness in sharp rivulets against my back, a tremble began to make its way through me, and hot tears started to crawl down my face and neck. It was all catching up with me, but I thought with my nightmares I had already been through this; if it was going to get worse, I didn't know if I could take it any more.

So I sat there in silence, until the shaking had stopped, and the tears had ebbed away, leaving hot traces like burning lava as the condensation froze them on my cheeks. I tried to make myself busy, laying out our bedding for the night, and by the time Trip returned I was, in appearance at least, my normal self again.

"How is he?" I asked, making most of the opportunity to calm my voice.

Instead of answering Trip dropped down beside me. And I knew my thoughts had been correct, but still I tried to disguise the choke in my voice as I asked, "Will he be in any pain?"

He looked at me and shook his head. Suddenly I felt the walls falling down around me, as I whispered, "Does he know?" and Trip just nodded, and I leant forward and hung my head, no longer caring. When the tears formed again he leant forward as well and wrapped his arms around me, too quick for me to protest even if I had wanted to, and allowed them to run slowly down the warm skin of his neck. That night I wept my angry heart out, and all the while the sun was sinking over the city below, for the last time, and I never noticed it. I tried not to think of E'Tal; I was terrified of death, and I hadn't realised this until it was too late. I had thought--no, convinced myself–that I was a changed woman. That I was no longer afraid. But as I shook and as Trip stroked my hair, I knew that fear wasn't something you can face in the space of a few days, or even in an entire lifetime, but that it would remain part of me until the day I died. That was reality. That was the truth, and I had nearly brought myself down trying to fight it where I should have been accepting it. 

After a while--don't ask me how long--when my throat had run dry and my eyes were aching and sore, I felt I should move, give Trip his personal space back. But something inside me, inside us both perhaps, pulled this feeling in quite the opposite direction. So we sat huddled against the wall, limbs entwined, listening to each breath, heartbeat and sigh the other produced, and I realised that this was necessity, not love. This was two human beings, a bit lost, a bit afraid, but more than anything else completely bound up in that most elusive type of friendship; that which only the most dire of circumstances can spawn. Our little games of flirtation now seemed silly, and I smiled to myself as I thought of how I had been wandering around this man like a fifteen year-old with a schoolgirl crush.

He spotted the tail end of my smile. "What?"

"I was just thinking...never mind."

Warm fingers lifted away damp strands of hair off my neck, and he shifted so that we were facing each other. I thought he would probe further, but he just smiled slightly. "I'm glad you're not cryin' anymore."

God. That was just the sort of thing likely to set me off. He sounded so kind, so caring, it was all I could do not to bury myself in his arms and stay there indefinitely. After a moment, I said, "You never asked what I was thinking."

"Okay, Hoshi. Please tell me what you were thinking."

I laughed, hit him gently on the arm. "Trip. I'm trying to be serious here."

He was silent for a while, then said, "I think I know what you're going to say."

"Do you?" I looked at his eyes, as the sunset we were no longer watching reflected into the blue, so that they flickered like liquid gold. He looked nervous all of a sudden, and I suddenly realised if I made a move now, and he didn't respond, it would be too awful to comprehend. An overwhelming urge to explain myself rose up inside me. "God, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be pushing you like this. I should have realised--"

"Hoshi..."

"Stupid. It was stupid of me--"

"_Hoshi_." He curled his palms around my jaw, and dipped his head so we were eye to eye. "This is getting ridiculous. Would you please stop with the apologies?" 

"Yes..." I touched my lips to his, no longer caring. I felt a murmur escape his throat, and for a moment we were very still, as if time had slowed to a stop, and I thought this time I really had made a mistake, but then suddenly a rush of breath escaped his lips and he kissed me back with force. It wasn't particularly elegant, more clumsy than anything, but as we knocked noses and fought to take in as much of each other as possible a deafening rush began to roar in my ears, and I felt that the only thing stopping me from passing out was the hunger with which I ate into him. But soon the rush in my ears quietened, began to mellow out, and I suddenly became more aware. Aware of the taste and smell and feel of him. Aware of the way he kissed first my bottom lip then my top, as if he was trying to savour every inch. Aware of the way his hands curled through my hair, across my neck and jaw, never resting anywhere. Aware of the butterfly-like touch his eyelashes produced on my cheeks. And of the heat of him. Oh, yes, that was what I felt above anything else--the pure, masculine heat that seemed to seep into every pore, through every inch of clothing; heat which even the air between us could not check, despite the cold of the night. 

It felt like we were drowning. It felt like we were doing something both terrible and wonderful, something that we couldn't hold back. It felt like coming home.

---

To sleep was a glorious salvation from reality, and I lay with my arms wrapped around his shoulders with, I think, more contentment than I had ever felt before. In the end I slept for the longest time since the beginning of my nightmares--about seven hours--but I still managed to wake before dawn, and as I removed myself from the still sleeping Trip, long polar rays were beginning to filter slowly into the dark sky. I sat by the window for a while, just watching, feeling guilty for admiring the view even though my feelings for this place had long since been prejudiced at that first drop of blood, all that time ago. 

There was a sigh. Turning, I expected to see Trip waking, but events last night had coerced me into forgetting the other member of our group. A sharp stab of guilt sliced through me, and I made my way cautiously to the other side of the room.

His eyes were open. And they were actually turned in my direction, which for some reason sent a chill down my spine. It either meant he was gaining strength, or...

The other I didn't want to contemplate. But something told me I was going to have to, so I took a deep breath, and said, "E'Tal. I'm here. I'm here..."

He opened his mouth, to speak or take a laboured breath, I don't know which. It turned out to be a combination of the two.

"Last night," he murmured, "last night I heard you crying. It angered me that I could do nothing about it."

"Oh, E'Tal, no. Don't think that."

"Please..." He brushed a dry hand over mine, which was surprisingly warm. "I know what you are going through. But you are strong, so much stronger than they are. It angered me to think you were doubting that."

_Don't cry_, I told myself, and I didn't. I kept my feelings tucked away, imagined I was locking them up in a draw, and the effect was almost immediate. "I'm not," I said, fiercely. "Not anymore. Please believe that." _Because that's what's keeping us all alive_.

A smile wrinkled the corners of his mouth.

"Good," he said. And his eyes left me, too weak to stay open anymore. After a minute or so I thought maybe he had gone back to sleep, until the softest of sounds came from his lips.

"When you leave...please tell my family that I'm sorry. Tell them I didn't mean for this to happen." A laboured breath, and I bent my head towards him to catch his next words.

"Tell them I did not suffer alone."

I held him as the sun rose, as the darkness ebbed away and as each breath grew softer, until his chest barely moved. Gradually the room lightened, and as I rested my head against his shoulder, I thought of the circumstances which had brought us here, circumstances which were killing this boy in my arms, and I knew this twisted adventure would change me, put me into a place from which I would never return. It was a good thought.

No more night. No more stars. We might cry tears of anger into the iridescent darkness, but once we came into the light everything was possible. 

When the sunlight hit my face, he was gone.

---

We placed him on our bedding. I removed the bandages, and Trip buttoned up his uniform, brushed the material down like E'Tal was his own son, going off on parade. He looked peaceful, like a child asleep, and I hoped he was somewhere safe.

Trip held my hand as I forced down breakfast I didn't want, and handed me the canteen with a look of sadness in his eyes. I think that was the moment I fell in love with him, as we sat there over barely touched plates, our fingers entwined like spider webs caught in the breeze. Whatever happened to us from now on, it didn't matter. I wasn't going to let our predicament torture me any longer, and I told Trip that.

"You're amazing," was all he said, and he leant his head against mine, so that our breaths mingled and all I could think to do was wrap my arms around his shoulders and simply hold on. But after a while the sensible part of me began to consider it a poor management of our time to be sitting there cooing like lovebirds, and with some reluctance I sat up away from him. 

"Seriously, though. What do you think they'll do when they find out E'Tal's dead? Will it mean anything to their cause, losing a hostage?"

He looked at me. "I doubt it'll really change anything. We were the ones they pinpointed. E'Tal was just a problem that got in the way."

"Do you still believe we're being watched?"

Trip squirmed slightly, gave a shrug. "I'm not sure about that. To be honest, I'm beginning to think maybe my imagination was getting away from me."

"No." I spoke sharply. "Don't say that. You're the optimistic one, remember?" He smiled. "Okay?"

He nodded and took the water from my hand. Giving it a shake, he murmured, "This is getting low. I'll go refill." He leaned in close, brushed his lips to my ear. "Stay good."

I watched him cross the room, half admiring the rumples in his shirt, and the line of sweat that ran just below his hairline, and half thinking back to his comment about E'Tal. It worried me that the Tolvans had considered him a problem that had simply gotten in the way. Is that what Ve'Lor thought of us? Two problems? Or were we more important than that?

Ve'Lor hadn't visited us since that first instance about a week ago, and I wondered if something had happened to him. Actually, I wondered about a lot of things. Being cut off from the world kind of lets you do that. Like Trip wondering if his eyes had been deceiving him all along.

Could he have imagined it?

I squinted through the glare of the window, and tried to pinpoint where the flash had come from. 

Nothing. Whatever, whoever had been there, they were gone.

I heard footsteps behind me, and stood up. "Hey, Trip, maybe you were right—"

"Right about what, Hoshi Sato?"

Ve'Lor gazed at me. In his hands he twirled the canteen, and behind him I could see Trip and three more guards. "Right about what?" he repeated, more softly. 

I looked down. "Nothing."

"Nothing? A universal theme, if ever I heard one." He stepped to the side, and I locked eyes with Trip, hurriedly trying to discover how they had managed to sneak up on us yet again. But he just shook his head, so I kept my mouth shut.

The Tolvan turned and nodded at one of his guards. He then addressed me. "Do not let this incident disturb you. I will see to it that the body is removed." He spoke as if a house pet had had an accident on the carpet, like E'Tal was nothing more than something inferior possessing only the ability to cause a _disturbance_. God help me--I was this close to letting him have it. And despite the fact that his eyes focused on my mouth the whole time he spoke, making a wave of nausea crawl through me, I stayed silent and met his gaze firmly, imagining the weak points it masked, wondering how easily they might be probed.  

I watched as two burly guards wrestled with E'Tal's body, and took some satisfaction over their laboured progress and frustrated exertion. But inside I was burning with anger, because I could imagine what they would do with it, and the fact that I _could_ imagine this, having already witnessed this cold, calculating menace display its rotten pursuit before my own eyes, only ignited the anger further. I broke Ve'Lor's stare, turned my back to him, and took quiet comfort in the serene beauty of the landscape beyond the glass. It was all I could do. It was all I wanted to do. I was suddenly tired--more tired than I had ever felt before.

"Was there something you wanted from us?" My voice dragged slightly. A sudden urge to lie down where I stood, to lie in the sun like a basking cat, had cloaked itself over my body, and it took a great amount of my strength to resist it.

I waited for his answer, but none came. There was a dull thud behind me, and both Ve'Lor and I turned simultaneously just in time to see the guard beside Trip buckle at the knees and fold heavily upon the floor.

At the same moment Trip caught my eye, and for a split second we shared a moment of realisation so electric a dry gasp escape my throat. The other guard fell, and Trip barely escaped being pulled down with him. I felt like I had dived underwater, as all sounds dropped to a low roar, and I wondered how powerful this gas was. Because that was what it had to have been. Nothing but an odourless gas could have knocked us out so fast.

I saw Trip's mouth move. He seemed to be speaking in slow motion, like something out of a silent movie. Then I realised his eyes were fixed on the window behind me.

And what he saw must have been extraordinary; his face went ghostly pale, and he raised a finger slowly towards it. But I never got the chance to look, because at that moment Ve'Lor began to slide down beside me. I wasn't as fortunate as Trip had been with the guard, and I felt my knees fold as the weight of him pulled me down. In a whirl of darkness I saw the floor rise up towards me--and then I hit the cold, unforgiving stone.

---

What happened next I only have vague recollections of, and still to this day areas of white space appear in my memory if I attempt to summon up what exactly happened in those last few minutes on Tolval. But the things I do remember seem to run in a series of fleeting, transitory images, like photos in a yellowed album, slightly dark and under-lit, but they are memories so strong I do not know how I might ever forget them.

I remember the cold of the floor, and the tears of pain that stained the stone beneath my cheek.

I remember hearing Ve'Lor groan softly beside me.

I remember Trip crawling in my direction and grasping my arm. He was yelling something, and was pulling at me to get up. He wanted to run away, but I was swimming underwater, caught between a world of pain and an extraordinary desire to just turn over and sleep.

I remember a white flash of light, feeling the earth shudder beneath me, and the sudden whistle of cold air as glass rained upon me like snowflakes. I numbly realised that the window, that great icon of our captive palace, had been blown apart.

I remember the silence that followed. The loud drumming of my heart.

I remember boots walking up to where I lay, and a gloved hand touching my face. And a voice: "Hoshi?" And again: "Hoshi?" as if there were no other words that could be said, and I remember that the voice was not Tolvan, was not Trip's, but familiar all the same. It took me an age to realise.

I heard: "Let's move them out," and "Help me lift her," and bits and pieces of conversations that floated in the air but never seemed to coalesce into legible sentences. I remember being lifted into that air, but though I tried to piece together those voices they remained elusive and eventually I gave up.

I remember falling asleep and waking in a dark place, then feeling cool, soft fingers touch my neck, and opening my eyes to see T'Pol gazing down at me, but again I couldn't be sure.

And finally, before I succumbed to the darkness, I remember turning my head and seeing Trip lie beside me, and thinking how lucky I was to have him there, while our crewmates fought to return their lost little birds home.

---

Well, there you have it. It's hard to believe it took so long to get here.

There are times when I look back at what we went through, and all I want to do is cry, or scream and shout, and I have to take a deep breath and remind myself where I am now, that Trip is alive, that I am alive, and then I have to check the sudden grin which threatens to escape.  

Jon later described our rescue as a 'series of lucky escapes'. He seemed rather pleased at that, but I may have mistaken it for simple relief at having his two temporary ambassadors back in one piece.

"You have no idea," he said, as I lay in sickbay in a hazy cloud of tiredness and bone-numbing soreness, "how glad we all are to see you two back." 

Trip recovered earlier than I did, but though Phlox had given him the all clear to return to his quarters for a full recuperation, he never once left my bedside. He said very little, not because keeping a one-sided conversation flowing isn't the easiest activity to maintain, but I think instead he just didn't have anything to say that couldn't be communicated through simple touch and eye contact. Rather sweet, I know. Remembering that makes me smile.

He did leave, though, eventually. We both did; Trip to his engines, and I to my quarters, where, if you remember, I mentioned at the start of this piece the doctor had ordered I stay until I was fully clear of any side effects of the gas used in our rescue. 

So there I went, and here we reach the end. I guess I can't really add anything more to this log, apart from the fact that I'm gradually going stir-crazy being cooped up in solitude. This morning I asked Jon when I could get back on the bridge and he said perhaps tomorrow, if Phlox gives me the all clear. God, I hope so. I've been dying to talk to people again in person, and see Trip. Yeah, I still get a funny feeling thinking about that; the fact that he and I now have another reason to look at one another, and know that there's more there, so much more, if we want to explore it. I know it's one thing to behave like that when you don't know if today is your last day alive, and another to be working together as a professional unit in the confines of a Starship, the eyes of everyone upon you, but I think I'll let nature take its course.

As far as Nieta Ve'Lor and the Fallen Ones go: my understanding from discussions with the captain and T'Pol, is that the Tolvan Confederacy have since denied any knowledge of their existence, and are claiming point blank that those men who murdered Ambassador E'Loc and kept two Starfleet officers captive for near on twelve days were simply rebel youths who were unfortunate enough to be tempted with promises of power and glory from one extremely charming and dominant individual. We have been informed that they will undergo a full trial and receive the maximum penalty for their actions. Jon told me he has doubts that things will ever be that simple, and I have to agree, though in my heart I hope I am wrong.  

And what of Hoshi Sato? Has she battled her demons and emerged the better warrior, if a little scarred and dirty? Furthermore, is she the same Hoshi who stepped into Shuttlepod Two, so very long ago, on a red carpet ride to collect a little gold medal?

The truth? To be honest, I don't think I'll ever know the truth. I _have_ changed, that goes without argument, but it's in ways too fragmented, too speculative, to even begin figuring out. One day I might start to glue ends together and draw conclusions, but it will take time. And time is one thing I do have.

Hours of it. Days of it. Whole lifetimes of it.

I still think of those men who we met as friends, and remained our friends. Ambassador E'Loc. E'Tal. Especially E'Tal. His strength in those last days still breaks my heart, and I'm afraid that strength will haunt my dreams. 

But I guess with the bad comes the good, and if having the chance to survive after so many perished is the outcome of this away-mission-gone-wrong; if being able to work and breathe in the most dazzling of offices is the only thing I'll get from this day on, I'll take it with arms open. Believe me, I will. 

Because I know I will always remember; I know I will never forget. 

-- End Personal Log --

Ensign Hoshi Sato, Enterprise NX-01

June 17, 2153


End file.
